Amazon has announced today the successor of their popular MOBI format which has been a staple of the Kindle for many years. The new format is called Kindle Format 8 or KF8 and brings to the table next generation capabilities for enhanced books.
Kindle Format 8 brings many new features and enhancements – including HTML5 support. This new ebook format is the next generation file format for Kindle books – replacing Mobi 7. As showcased on Kindle Fire, KF8 enables publishers to create great-looking books in categories that require rich formatting and design such as children’s picture books, comics & graphic novels, technical & engineering books and cookbooks. Kindle Format 8 replaces the Mobi format and adds over 150 new formatting capabilities, including fixed layouts, nested tables, callouts, sidebars and Scalable Vector Graphics, opening up more opportunities to create Kindle books that readers will love.
One of the great things about this new format is that it feels next generation. It takes some of the most important elements of HTML5 and CSS3 and allows authors and publishers to make great content. This will really allow medical journals, textbooks and comic books to be more clean and robust. Remember the Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader that was released a month or two ago? I wonder how these new books will look on the online browser based reader. This new ebook format will be compatible with the 3rd and 4th generation Kindle Readers, including the new Kindle Touch. Firmware updates will be pushed to the devices in the next few weeks to usher in full support for this new format.
There are over 150 new features found in the new ebook format and updates to Kindle Publishing tools will be made in the next few weeks. This will allow publishers and authors to preview what their book will look like. If you want to publish on both the Kindle Fire and Amazon Kindle you will not have to make two different versions of your ebook the updated tools will automatically do this for you! A full list of technical features can be found HERE. If you are a publisher or author and want to be the first to get your hands on the new development tools you can sign up for early access HERE.
The core features of Kindle Format 8 include;
* CSS3 support * Floating elements
* Fixed layouts * Text on background images
* Embedded fonts * Numbered and bulleted lists
* Drop caps
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
